LONDON/KYIV: Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy flies to Washington on Monday under heavy US pressure to agree a swift end to Russia’s war in Ukraine but determined to defend Kyiv’s interests - without sparking a second Oval Office bust-up with Donald Trump.
The US president invited Zelenskiy to Washington after rolling out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin, Kyiv’s arch foe, at a summit in Alaska that shocked many in Ukraine, where hundreds of thousands have died since Russia’s 2022 invasion.
The Alaska talks failed to produce the ceasefire that Trump sought, and the US leader said on Saturday that he now wanted a rapid, full-fledged peace deal and that Kyiv should accept because “Russia is a very big power, and they’re not”.
The blunt rhetoric throws the onus squarely back on Zelenskiy, putting him in a perilous position as he returns to Washington for the first time since his talks with Trump in the Oval Office in February descended into acrimony.
The US president upbraided him in front of world media at the time, saying Zelenskiy did not “hold the cards” in negotiations and that what he described as Kyiv’s intransigence risked triggering World War Three.
Trump’s pursuit of a quick deal defies intense diplomacy by the European allies and Ukraine to convince him that a ceasefire should come first and not - as sought by the Kremlin - once a settlement is agreed.
A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that European leaders had also been invited to Monday’s meeting between Trump and Zelenskiy, though it was unclear who would actually attend.
Trump briefed Zelenskiy on his talks with Putin during a call on Saturday that lasted more than an hour and a half, the Ukrainian leader said. They were joined after an hour by European and NATO officials, he added.
“The impression is he wants a fast deal at any price,” a source familiar with the conversation said.
The source said Trump told Zelenskiy that Putin had offered to freeze the front lines elsewhere as part of a deal, if Ukraine fully withdrew its troops from the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, something Zelenskiy said was not possible.
Trump and US envoy Steve Witkoff told the Ukrainian leader that Putin had said there could be no ceasefire before that happened, and that the Russian leader could pledge not to launch any new aggression against Ukraine as part of an agreement.
Kyiv has publicly dismissed the idea of withdrawing from internationally recognised Ukrainian land as part of a deal, and says the industrial Donetsk region serves as a fortress holding back Russian advances deeper into Ukraine.
Oleksandr Merezhko, head of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told Reuters by phone that Trump’s emphasis on a deal rather than a ceasefire carried great risks for Ukraine.
“In Putin’s view, a peace agreement means several dangerous things – Ukraine not joining NATO, his absurd demands for denazification and demilitarisation, the Russian language and the Russian church,” he said.
Any such deal could be politically explosive inside Ukraine, Merezhko said, adding he was worried that Putin’s ostracism in the West had ended.
Avoiding a repeat of the Oval Office row is critical for Zelenskiy to preserve relations with the US, which still provides military assistance and is the key source of intelligence on Russia’s military activity.
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